On the first weekend in March, hundreds of the region’s best young athletes will call York County home as the Mid-Atlantic Swimming Junior Olympics Championship Meet kicks off at Central York High School and the YMCA’s Graham Aquatic Center.

It’s a big deal for parents who will travel from across Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware to see their children compete. It’s also an amazing economic opportunity for York County.

We are hosting the meet for the first time, and it is a testament to strong partnerships and the value of tourism to everyone in our community.

In this case, the York County Convention & Visitors Bureau and our partners are gearing up for what promises to be a significant economic boost for our community. It’s exactly the type of event that proves why visitors bureaus across the country should look to sports to help maximize economic impact.

An expected 800 participants and their families — the vast majority of whom are traveling from out of town — will converge on York County for the four-day swim meet. These are the overnight spenders that are key to visitors bureaus, as they spend the highest amounts across industry segments including retail, dining, transportation and lodging.

Competitors and their families will fill hotel rooms up and down the Interstate 83 corridor and chow down on pizza, sandwiches and more from local restaurants. All told, we anticipate the swim meet to generate more than $900,000 in economic impact.

That’s a big win for everyone in York County, but it’s just a small glimpse into the power of sports tourism.

Nationwide, sports tourism generates about $38 billion annually, according to a 2014 USA Travel study by Longwoods International. Here at home, York County will host sporting events that will bring more than $20 million of economic impact and thousands of youth to our community in 2016 alone.

From swimming to volleyball and wrestling to softball, our sport venues will host events from the PIAA state championship boys and girls golf tournament to Pennsylvania’s largest amateur athletic competition, the Keystone State Games, presented by York College of Pennsylvania.

My family sees first-hand the impact of sports. Our daughter plays Division I basketball, and our three nieces each play a high school sport.

Supporting our daughter’s skill and desire to play basketball in college has taken us — and our wallets — to AAU tournaments in Chicago, Richmond and Washington, D.C. We’ve also crisscrossed Pennsylvania so she could compete in Hershey, State College and, of course, York.

Working together as a region, we can compete with all those places.

Sport York, the YCCVB’s business-to-business brand, works with tournament organizers to showcase the experience and infrastructure the York region offers to help make their event a success.

To accommodate the Junior Olympic swim meet, we’re using two, eight-lane pools that can each seat at least 500 spectators. The visitors bureau’s members will help provide meals for officials, and hotels across York County are offering up enough rooms to make sure everyone has a place to stay.

While the economic impact is important, we stand to gain much more.

Research has shown the halo effect of tourism. People who visit a destination usually leave with a positive impression of the community. They often see it as a good place to live or start a career — maybe even as the perfect place to retire.

In sports tourism, visitors bureaus have tapped into a market that delivers a significant secondary economic benefit to employers, chambers of commerce and economic development agencies that understand and maximize the opportunities of sports tourism.

The lessons learned by participating in sports are invaluable to young athletes, who comprise the workforce of tomorrow. Traits such as resilience, teamwork, sportsmanship, competitiveness, determination, sacrifice, prioritization and commitment all appeal to potential employers.

Savvy communities — ours included — can realize regional economic benefits by enticing these athletes with valuable life experiences back to York County to secure an education and bring their talents to bear in the workforce.

It can all start the minute those young swimmers dive into the water next month.

Anne Druck is president of the York County Convention & Visitors Bureau.